apple time machine keeps destroying my external hard drives

There is obviously a problem with time machined the APFS formatting for external hard drives. why hasn't apple addressed this problem? Iv'e now lost 3 externals due to time machine destruction of drives to the point that there no longer usable and can't be reformatted.

Posted on Dec 15, 2022 10:42 AM

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Posted on Jan 18, 2023 2:12 PM

Wow! Before going to such extremes, try running Disk Utility First Aid while booted in Recovery.


I saw very similar errors to the above, which did seem related to Time Machine having run, while running Big Sur 11.7.


Here's the scenario:

"Time Machine" is a single APFS volume on an external disk, with another identical single-volume APFS disk in the same enclosure; both sharing a TB2 cable to the MBP.  


TM had been set to run overnight every 4 days.  Perhaps because i don't routinely use the other drive, it wasn't until several days later I'd notice the non-TM drive was not mounted.  


Running Disk Utility from normal boot, the non-TM drive had an odd, vaguely-generic name.  (Once it was shown as Time Machine!)  DU First Aid gave similar errors as you showed above, and that one drive would not mount on re-boot.  "Time Machine" drive never had a problem.


Intending to re-format, I first ran Disk Util from Recovery and noticed it correctly reported the disk name, etc.  I then ran First Aid on the drive at all levels, which ran without error. After re-booting, that second drive also mounted correctly with it's normal name.


This happened maybe 5 times.  Since I knew the work-around, I wasn't too concerned.  I chalk it up to a software problem in the OS; rather do the work-around than run Apple's gauntlet.  I just installed Monterey, haven’t seen it… yet.


It is not attributable to a drive problem. DriveDX SMART reports no errors, other than the bogus shock events.


=== DRIVE ERROR LOG ===

error log is empty


=== DRIVE SELF-TEST LOG ===


#   | LIFETIME (H)   | TEST TYPE         | PROGRESS | STATUS                          | LBA of 1st error


1          4771        Extended offline       10%     Aborted by host                      -     

2          2368        Short offline         100%     Completed without error         -     


=== DEVICE STATISTICS ===


[0x01] General Statistics (revision 2)

  0x08 Lifetime Power-on Resets                  : 2,839 

  0x10 Power-on Hours                            : 5,079 hours

  0x18 Logical Sectors Written                   : 16,639,655,832 (8.5 TB)

  0x20 Number of Write Commands                  : 161,390,899 

  0x28 Logical Sectors Read                      : 7,548,700,803 (3.9 TB)

  0x30 Number of Read Commands                   : 276,177,607 


[0x02] Free Fall Statistics (revision 1)

  0x10 Overlimit Shock Events                    : 3  (bogus; it once incremented as I watched!!)


[0x03] Rotating Media Statistics (revision 1)

  0x08 Spindle Motor Power-on Hours              : 4,983 hours

  0x10 Head Flying Hours                         : 3,159 hours

  0x18 Head Loaded Events                        : 5,963 

  0x20 Reallocated Logical Sector Count          : 0 (0 B)

  0x28 Read Recovery Attempts                    : 0 

  0x30 Mechanical Start Failure Count            : 0 


[0x04] General Errors Statistics (revision 1)

  0x08 Number of Reported Uncorrectable Errors   : 0 

  0x10 Resets Between Cmd Accept. and Compl.     : 1 


[0x05] Temperature Statistics (revision 1)


  0x08 Current Temperature                       : 32 °C

  0x10 Average Short Term Temperature            : 33 °C

  0x18 Average Long Term Temperature             : 33 °C

  0x20 Highest Temperature                       : 45 °C

  0x28 Lowest Temperature                        : 16 °C

  0x30 Highest Avg. Short Term Temperature       : 41 °C

  0x38 Lowest Avg. Short Term Temperature        : 27 °C

  0x40 Highest Avg. Long Term Temperature        : 39 °C

  0x48 Lowest Avg. Long Term Temperature         : 30 °C

  0x50 Time in Over-Temperature                  : 0 minutes

  0x58 Specified Max Operating Temperature       : 55 °C

  0x60 Time in Under-Temperature                 : 0 minutes

0x68 Specified Min Operating Temperature       : 5 °C


[0x06] Transport Statistics (revision 1)

  0x08 Number of Hardware Resets                 : 10,754 

  0x18 Number of Interface CRC Errors            : 0 

________________________


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apple time machine keeps destroying my external hard drives

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